Bummer

Wet tiles + stairs + rush hour + gravity defying manoeuvre = one sore sister and another stressed sister

[Valentino Vamp]

Two nights ago I was planning to meet up with Mish for dinner. The roads were slick with rain and the air achingly frigid (yet bewildering still a smidgen warmer than an English summer) - the perfect night for heavy eastern European fare and lip smacking cider.

I rang Mish to check how far away she was from the restaurant. Sounding extremely blasé, she replied, “I hurt my back. I’m in an ambulance my way to hospital.”

I had visions of the worst possible injuries. Mish’s nonplussed attitude and vague answers didn’t help my now madcap state of mind.

By the time I reached the hospital she was as high as a kite from morphine – heckling the footy players on telly, chatting about Hawaii – and I was stroppy.

I am my Mother’s daughter, I discovered. I don’t lend well to hospital situations, even though I’ve worked in many. I kept thinking about all the possible outcomes and getting more and more short tempered and narkier by the minute.

After an x-ray it was discovered that she fractured her coccyx. She busted her butt. She cracked her arse.

Hopefully she is coming home today. Fingers crossed! I want to drink wine and watch ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ with her, as tonight is my last night in Sydney.

To Fry a fish called Wanda

One of my life goals is to run a half marathon in 85 minutes. A far less achievable, but nonetheless alluring goal is to be as witty as Stephen Fry. Unfortunately the closest I’ll probably ever get to emulating Mr Fry, is the character he played in A Fish Called Wanda. Specifically entitled ‘Man at Airport.’

[Mr Fry]

As insurmountable as the challenge may seem, I am not relinquishing my goal just yet. Like an athlete bathes in pools of lactic acid to push their body to a new level of fitness - I’m going to strain my eyes till they are flacked in crows feet, to sharpen wit and wisdom.

I'm going to nibble on dictionaries and thesaurus', till my sentences are soaking with archaic but contextually appropriate words.

I'm going to stuff marbles in my mouth, to round my vowels, so if a snippet of wit does slip out, it sounds sophisticated and not crude.

I'm going to wear tweed and trousers.

I'm going to fill the lacuna of my cultural development with the putty that is Proust.

[Proust]

Or at least read about someone who is attempting to labour through Proust in a year.

And I can't seem to find my dictionary or a bag of marbles, so I think I’m going to re-watch ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ and study the Fry.

[A Fish Called Wanda]